I recently realized that Gmail accounts allow us to collect email through an email program using the IMAP protocol. And it works really well too ! GMail is the only messaging service which carries IMAP for free, and the IMAP protocol is more complete that POP, which allows us to do what I'm about to explain.

This is how is works. First you install an email program such as Thunderbird. You set up Thunderbird to get your gmail emails. And then you create all the folders you need to organize everything neatly.
Here's how I organized it, I have the following folders :
[Gmail]/Coordinators
[Gmail]/English Team
[Gmail]/French
[Gmail]/Linguistic Team
[Gmail]/Pootle
[Gmail]/PR Taskforce
[Gmail]/TZM Forum
[Gmail]/Wiki Changes
[Gmail]/Youtube

The cool thing is, you can set filters in your email program so that whenever you receive email, it evaluates all the conditions you set up in the filter and goes directly in the proper folder You can also transfer emails, mark them as read, change their priority, or copy them, all of that being done automatically !

Plus, whenever I get a message, a popup shows up telling me who sent it, the subject and a summary of its contents. Whenever you mark an email as read or delete it, Thunderbird synchronizes itself with Gmail automatically and your mailbox is up to date.

I don't know whether you guys have this kind of knowledge, which can be a huge time saver! I could make a tutorial showing you how to set up Thunderbird to work with GMail with screenshots, or we could organize a TS meeting about organizing our emails. Would you be interested ?

This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "brunodc" (Jul 12th 2011, 9:26am)

Hi Bruno!! I took my time to be ready to dive into this tool, even though that I am using it for a few months now but not in its full capability, I'm sure. Too bad hehe

Here is how I have my Thunderbird. I am sure I have way too many folders there. But before I delete and add new ones, I wonder if you keep the separate email accounts with the different folders in them, or if you can have folders that receive mails from different accounts? Is this last situation the one that correspondsto your organization model? I think I will delete all the "personal", "starred", "vacation" (well, maybe I should keep this one for motivation) etc... Whatis an "important" folder for? why are some mails being forward there without me setting it up so? Hehe lots of questions. Point me at the tutorial if it fits you better

Fixed it. I have much less folders there now and many YT notifications that dont matter (all those except messages, comments and Video issues) wont be showing up to me unless I really want. And that was most part of the noise hehehe.

Well, Rod, I haven't made the tutorial!!!! I was asking around whether there would be a need for it and I didn't feel much enthousiasm about the subject so I left it there and completely forgot about it! (Note that my initial post was just days after the forum was first started )

Yeah! I know it is that old! I took my time to believe in your witchcraft but now, this "timesavingpotion" is really working and improving my life!
Well, time to get back to that book that I left on my bedside table last year huuugs!